# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2024, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785 "2024-07-25T15:06:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 72
**Author:** ![motu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/motu/32/259_2.png) [@motu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/motu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2025, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1421 "2025-01-23T02:19:34Z")
John Tyler, born in 1790, was the 10th President of the United States. He succeeded William Henry Harrison as President after his death from illness 31 days after assuming the office. John Tyler had eight children with his first wife, who died when they were in the White House. Two years later, he re-married, and had another seven children. Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr., John Tyler’s third youngest child, was born 1853. Lyon was his second son with his second wife in 1928. They also has a third son who died in infancy. Grandson Harrison Ruffin Tyler is still alive today and grandfather John Tyler is the earliest former president to have a living grandchild today. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2025, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1422 "2025-01-23T09:01:15Z")
It’s C **a** lògero. From Greek _kalos geron_ ‘beautiful old man’. I have relatives in Sicily named Calogero. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2025, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1423 "2025-01-23T21:10:03Z")
Producer Sam Zimbalist was no relation to Efrem Zimbalist, but then that made me curious as to see the name origin. It means "a person who plays the [cimbalom."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimbalom) Wasn’t aware of such a thing, but I suppose there are lots of musical instruments that aren’t part of most orchestras. ---
**Author:** ![motu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/motu/32/259_2.png) [@motu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/motu)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2025, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1424 "2025-01-23T22:30:25Z")
> [@motu](#): > > Lyon was his second son with his second wife in 1928. They also has a third son who died in infancy. That should be had, not was. Lyon _ **had** _ his second son with his second wife in 1928. They also has a third son who died in infancy. ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1425 "2025-01-24T02:40:33Z")
> [@motu](#): > > John Tyler, born in 1790 > [@motu](#): > > Grandson Harrison Ruffin Tyler is still alive today It amazes me that but 3 generations have spanned all but 14 years of the US’s existence – 235 years since John Tyler was born. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1426 "2025-01-24T03:43:54Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > It amazes me that but 3 generations have spanned all but 14 years of the US’s existence – 235 years since John Tyler was born. Elderly men marrying a young wife and siring a few late children before death used to be more acceptable and common. A grandson could be born 120-140 years after his grandfather’s death. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1427 "2025-01-24T04:47:25Z")
We live in an era where death rates are sub-1% until about age 40. When you look at as recent as 1912, a person had a 20% chance of not making it past 10. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1428 "2025-01-24T15:26:31Z")
Reading a book I picked up over the weekend – _Mark Twain’s Tales of the Macabre and Mysterious_ (edited and collected by R. Kent Rasmussen), I read an excerpt from Twain’s _Life on the Mississippi_ that I had forgotten about. It references the **Jibbenainosay** , a character i an 1837 novel that was so popular and well-known in its day that Twain didn’t feel he had to add an explanatory note in his 1883 book. The character appeared in a novel **Nick of the Woods: or the Jibbenainosay** by Robert Montgomery. It’s the story of an Avenging Terror who killed Shawnee Indians to avenge the death of his family at thir hands. The Avenger is actually the appropriately-named Nathan Slaughter, a Quaker by day. At Night he dresses up in leggings and animal skins and caries a long stick and a knife. > [@](#): > > The novel has been called a “prominent example of the American Gothic form.”[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_of_the_Woods#cite_note-ashgate1-2) _The Columbia Companion to American History on Film_ , which dubs Nathan Slaughter “a one-man genocide squad”, also credits the novel for popularizing the mode of unintelligent Indian speaking (“Me Inju-man! … Me kill all white man!”) used by many later authors and in movies.[[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_of_the_Woods#cite_note-columbia-6) (from the Wikipedia page) What’s interesting is that the word “Jebbinainosay” is supposed to derive from an Indian phrase meaning “The Spirit that Walks”. That stopped me, because I couldn’t help but think of Lee Falk’s ur-superhero _The Phantom_, AKA “THe Ghost that Walks” Did Falk read the novel, or hear about him in some way (the story was dramatized three times for the stage)? When I thought about it, the similarities became obvious. Falk’s character is not the original Phantom, but one of a line, but the original Phantom started out avenging the death of a family member by a group (pirates, in this case). He wears a costume and has a Secret Identity by day. If there is a link, this pushes the inspiration for costumed heroes back much further than I had always assumed, predating The Shadow (1930) and Dr. Syn (The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh) (1915) and The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) > **[Mr. J. Proctor in his Great Original Character of the Jibbenainosay, in Nick...](https://www.si.edu/object/mr-j-proctor-his-great-original-character-jibbenainosay-nick-woods%3Anmah_325268)** ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1429 "2025-01-24T15:48:12Z")
Oh, yeah – one other thing. Nathan Slaughter leaves a mark on his victims – he carves a cross into their bodies. It’s like the “Z” that Zorro makes, although Slaughter predates Zorro (1919) by 82 years. “Nate” Slaughter, I see by a Google search, is also the name of a Wide Receiver who played for the Houston Texans, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and (sorta) for the Arizona Cardinals, and is now a free agent. I wonder if he knows abou his namesake. > **[Nate Slaughter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Slaughter)** > > Nathan "Nate" Slaughter (born August 21, 1992) is an American football wide receiver who is currently a free agent. > Slaughter attended Lubbock High School in Lubbock, Texas under Coach Mike Speck. As a sophomore, he recorded 14 receptions for 98 yards and two touchdowns and earned honorable mention honors. During his junior season, Slaughter recorded 37 catches for 430 yards and three touchdowns and earned honorable mention honors. In his senior season, Slaughter was named a first-team all-Dis... ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1430 "2025-01-24T16:15:18Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The Avenger is actually the appropriately-named Nathan Slaughter, a Quaker by day. At Night he dresses up in leggings and animal skins and caries a long stick and a knife. That’s a very rare pre-Scarlet Pimpernel instance of the superhero with a secret identity trope. A really racist one, though. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1431 "2025-01-24T17:58:28Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > That’s a very rare pre-Scarlet Pimpernel instance of the superhero with a secret identity trope. A really racist one, though. Yeah – uninspiring, that. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1432 "2025-01-24T18:30:26Z")
Meh, it’s fiction. If we can read comic books about people with paranormal powers, aliens, demons, mutants, and hidden conspiracies going back as far as the creation of the universe, then I could take that story as set in an imaginary universe where North America was originally inhabited by quasi-human “injuns” rather than actual human Native Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1433 "2025-01-24T18:39:39Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Oh, yeah – one other thing. Nathan Slaughter leaves a mark on his victims – he carves a cross into their bodies. It’s like the “Z” that Zorro makes, although Slaughter predates Zorro (1919) by 82 years. Specific signifier wounding was a thing in Native American warfare. [Ridgway Glover](https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/982233-Frontier-Photographer--Ridgway-Glover) was a photographer who went West to record the native tribes and was captured by Lakota. He evidently tried to reason with them, since his body was found with a large X incised in the chest, meaning they considered him a coward. When the women went over the Little Bighorn battlefield they jammed an awl into Custer’s ears to clear them out, so that in the afterlife he’d listen to warnings instead of ignoring them. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1434 "2025-01-24T18:44:55Z")
This is the best fact in a while. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2025, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1435 "2025-01-24T20:13:20Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Oh, yeah – one other thing. Nathan Slaughter leaves a mark on his victims – he carves a cross into their bodies. It’s like the “Z” that Zorro makes, although Slaughter predates Zorro (1919) by 82 years. > [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Specific signifier wounding was a thing in Native American warfare. I wonder if this was the inspiration for **[Aldo Raine’s practice of carving a swastika into his victims’ foreheads in Inglorious Basterds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglourious_Basterds#:~:text=In%20Germany%2C%20Adolf%20Hitler%20interviews%20a%20German%20soldier%2C%20who%20reveals%20that%20Raine%20carved%20a%20swastika%20into%20his%20forehead%20after%20massacring%20his%20squad.)**. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2025, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1436 "2025-01-25T01:04:33Z")
I suspect a lot of the real life mutilations were inspired by sensationalistic fiction like Slaughter’s. Lurid tales convinced whites that it was a widespread practice by Indians, so adopted the same against the Indians who in turn used it against the whites. Yay, pulp fiction… ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2025, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1437 "2025-01-25T01:55:55Z")
Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s last name is Maltese and means “Father of Chickens” likely because one of his forebearers owned a poultry farm. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2025, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1438 "2025-01-25T06:50:05Z")
I read this in a scientific journal today: In regulation chess, after each player has moved a piece 5 times each, there are 69,352,859,712,417 possible game positions that could have been played. > [@Chronos](#): > > Make America Paleolithic Again What, you don’t think that’s what they’re doing!? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2025, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1439 "2025-01-25T09:35:21Z")
Thanks for setting me straight. I knew somehow that it didn’t look right when I typed it. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2025, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1440 "2025-01-25T15:46:26Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I suspect a lot of the real life mutilations were inspired by sensationalistic fiction like Slaughter’s. Lurid tales convinced whites that it was a widespread practice by Indians, so adopted the same against the Indians who in turn used it against the whites. Yay, pulp fiction… Do you have a cite for this claim? It seems quite fantastical to me. There is plenty of pre-Columbian evidence of scalping, for example; and note that it is hardly unique to North America. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=71) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=73)